


with all of your edges sanded or shorn

by DragonEyez



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Winter in Hieron Spoilers, blame annie for this one, hieron is full of bad sad dads and these two are problem the baddest and saddest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-19
Updated: 2018-10-19
Packaged: 2019-08-04 09:45:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16344446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonEyez/pseuds/DragonEyez
Summary: my love my love what have you done, with all of your edges sanded or shorn, my love my love where have you gone, the frames are all shattered and the pictures are torn





	with all of your edges sanded or shorn

**Author's Note:**

> yeah you can go ahead and [blame](https://twitter.com/dancynrew/status/1053025128311734272) [annie](https://twitter.com/dancynrew/status/1053028426771181568) [for](https://twitter.com/dancynrew/status/1053031453938708480) [this](https://twitter.com/dancynrew/status/1053061740999536640) [one](https://twitter.com/dancynrew/status/1053141231042064384)
> 
> i listened to nothing but keaton henson and fleet foxes writing this

When he stepped blinking into the gentle spring sun, Samot was watching. 

He watched his paladin run to his family, embracing the son he no longer recognized and the wife who’d steadfastly waited. He watched the woman who had wielded that cursed blade for so long emerge, clutching the hand of her thief, something like love etched into both their postures. His niece stood aside, watching them awkwardly, and he longed to laugh. Or maybe offer comfort. He knew not which he was more capable of these days. The orc who’d once worn his mask, who still bore its scars, approaching the baker with caution, eyes scanning the crowd as if searching for another. Samot wanted to tell him that the wild one no longer claimed any attachment to him, but it was not his place. And the knife embedded in his guts twisted another inch, and then another and another.

His lord, his king, his sun, his love, standing behind all of them, staring him down, face tired but full of love, and worse. Forgiveness. He looked _good_ and that struck Samot as unfair. He looked relaxed, he’d let himself go. Not in a bad way, just in the way that he no longer looked as if he carried the fate of civilization on his shoulders. His hair was longer, the stress that had embedded itself in his very being had released its hold on him. What a wonder that death (not Death. No longer Death) would have reversed them so.

Samot knew there were eyes heavy on the both of them, waiting to see what the famed opposing gods would do when faced with each other for the first time in millenia. He must confess, he also had no idea. It had been so long, even for a god, and there was much that had happened, both between them and outside of them. Not to mention… Well. It had been a long time. Who knew what wounds still laid fresh, unhealed by time or distance. Samothes walked towards him, slowly but with purpose, and Samot made no move to either close the distance or cause chase. He felt cold, stood like a statue. One of his own pala-din in near every way. 

“Husband,” He said softly, smile soft but present, eyes warm. Too warm, too full of love. Too accepting when Samot had allowed- His train of thought was broken by Samothes lifting one hand up, reaching for his head. 

“Do not.” Samot grabbed him by the wrist, and they stood there frozen, staring at each other. His husband’s face grew sad, and the knife twisted further.

“My love, your hair.”

“Yes. My hair.”

“My wolf, what have you done?”

“There was no longer room for a Boy-King in a world like ours has become. It was time for even me to grow up.” His husband looked even sadder at that. Samot tasted something bitter creeping up the back of his throat. What right had he to look so distraught, what right had he to question Samot when he didn’t even _know_ what it has cost him. What it had caused.

“I see. And where is our- where is he?”

If Samot had been anything other than ice-and-heat-and-dark coalesced into a single being, he thought that simple question would have shattered him. His face set, he was stone he was iron he was ice he was the last wolf alive and Samothes must have see all that because Samot could swear he heard his husband’s heart **break**. 

A man who had always stood tall and proud crumbled into his arms, and Samot did nothing to break their fall as he caught him and they both fell the ground in a heap. (Somewhere in his mind, he relished the crack of his knees on the hard packed earth). He held Samothes as he wept like a babe in his arms, mountainous shoulders shaking with each sob. Samot had had ten years to grieve for his boy, his son, his summer sun, alone and abandoned to his work. He would hold his his husband through however long he would grieve, even if it took another ten years or longer. 

The surrounding mortals may have had the good sense to leave them alone to their mourning or not, Samot had no way of knowing, but he hoped for their own sakes they had. He couldn’t bear it if anyone else witnessed this weakness of theirs. This was not meant to be a public spectacle. 

Day turned to night before Samothes seemed to run out of tears. His body was wracked by dry sobs, but his face rested dry on Samot’s shoulder. He allowed Samot to raise him to his feet and, through some twist of the fabric of the world, transport the both of them to the place they had both once called home, to a bed in a room in a volcano that they had both once spent minutes hours days in. Neither bothered undressing, they both simply fell onto the mattress like puppets whose strings had been severed. It was here and only here that Samot allowed the nearness of his love to melt him. Until he was no longer a statue of ice, but a man once more. 

He curled into his husband’s chest and allowed his wandering hands to brush over the bristles of his head where there had once been curls like sunbeams. 

“I couldn’t- I just- I buried our child and I saw my reflection and all I could see was him so I took my dagger and...well. You know the results.” Samot’s voice sounded cracked and dry even to his own ears. Samothes said nothing for a long time, just pulled Samot even closer to him, as if he was trying to merge them both into one being. In that moment, the overwhelming loneliness and pain of millenia of empty beds and cold nights washed over Samot, and he wished too that they could be one, if only to prevent any more nights of that. 

“I’m sorry my love. I am sorry.”

What more was there that could be said after that? They laid in silence, holding each other, until finally they fell into the restless sort of sleep brought on by emotional exhaustion. Before Samot totally drifted off, though, he felt the knife twist once more, and then slowly, just for a moment, it felt as if it was pulled out a little, if only slightly.

**Author's Note:**

> as always, comments and constructive criticism are always appreciated. i can be found [here](https://theunacceptablepylades.tumblr.com/) on tumblr or [@thedaedpoets](https://twitter.com/thedaedpoets) on twitter. and if you like what i write, consider buying me a [coffee](https://ko-fi.com/queerlydeparted)


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